Column: Overpaid doctors?
Many people outside medicine envision doctors as working four days a week (if it doesn't interfere with their golf schedules), exploiting tax shelters to finance their Porsches, all the while pulling in 300K annually just for a few extra years of school. Oh sure, they say. Medicare is sticking it to them and malpractice premiums are rising, but so what? They can spare a few bucks. An M.D. costs many times the cost of a law or business degree, yet medical students pay roughly the same tuition as other professional students. Supply of physicians is artificially restricted through medical schools in order to keep wages high, and I have to wait long enough to get an appointment as it is, so let's open the floodgates and bring down those overblown wages. And then the final pronouncement: Doctors are overpaid.